I saw Dylan in San Francisco in 1993, and even then he sounded like a bee trapped in a Coke can. Couldn’t even manage a full octave. An experience only for the diehard faithful (which my companion was).
I realise I’m in the minority, but I’ve been a fan of Tormato ever since it was released. I would love to hear a vinyl version with the extra tracks (a la 2003 CD), and the production problems fixed.
I don’t hate Tales, but it’s work.
Please don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t dislike Tormato; it’s a fine album by the classic lineup. I just prefer Tales from Topographic Oceans.
Bowie - Never Let Me Down.
I agree with @TheKevster that Tonight is awful also but I enjoy 2 tracks although the rest is pretty woeful.
Lou Reed - Metal Machine Music
Neil Young - Landing On Water
Love - Reel to Real
Iggy Pop - Naughty Little Doggie
I’m with you most of the way on Love’s Reel To Real, except that it contains one fantastic track - ‘Everybody’s Gotta Live’.
In fact, it’s not really a Love album at all. Arthur Lee had fired all the other original band members, and those who played on it were probably session musicians. Shortly after making the album, Arthur Lee found himself incarcerated for about 20 years over a couple of fairly minor misdemeanours involving firearms under the notorious ‘three strikes’ rule that prevailed in some US states at the time. He did come back briefly after his release - I saw him live at a tiny underground music club in London, where he was warming up for an appearance at Glastonbury.
Remember having a day off work and heading into town to Virgin at the top of Oxford St to buy the album on it’s release day.
Over the years it appears Bowie wanted to re-record the album which eventually happened. I think the result the ‘re-recorded re-mixed album - Never Let Me Down 2018 is a great record.
Yep it was The Borderline. I was there also and got to shake the great man’s hand.
Hmm I’ve not heard this new remix version. I must check it out but I can’t believe it will make a silk purse etc.
Exactly words or similar came to mind as I was typing my comment. But just listening to it now it is a vast improvement and for me a great listen.
Chris Cornell - Scream. Love Soundgarden, hate this. Truly awful synth garbage.
Agreed.
I’ve been playing this version a lot recently. Fantastic.
Well, what a small world! I spent some time chatting to the sound engineer at the Borderline, trying to blag a CD of the concert taken from the mixing desk.
Not in the U.S. as far as I can recall.
According to the Beatles Bible site it was charged at only “slightly more” because it was a double rather than just straight double the price of a single album. Elsewhere there are suggestions that the plain cover was a tactic to reduce it below what the price of an actual double cost at that time. The suggestion is that the slight extra cost is what delayed it slightly from going immediately to number 1. Clearly did it no harm as I believe it remains the biggest selling album of the 1960s in the US.
Goes to show you can fool some of the people some of the time.
Where do you get this rubbish from Mike?
It is well-known that the Beatles’ mate/drug supplier, the famous art dealer Robert Fraser, put them (Paul) in touch with pop and conceptual artist Richard Hamilton, the White Album designer. The group felt that the complex, nostalgia-tinged cover Peter Blake and Jann Howarth created for Pepper had worked brilliantly but they wanted something different for their new waxing.
Hamilton suggested to McCartney that they go in completely the opposite direction. Hamilton recalled, in an interview with filmakers Pete Stern and Alex Turnbull just before his death in 2011, that he suggested to McCartney that “Sgt. Pepper’s cover was so filled with activity that it might be nice to have a completely clean sheet and just do a white cover”. It was also Hamilton who proposed they call the album simply The Beatles - and he also had the idea of numbering copies (“a mass produced individual item” if you like) and of including the collage poster.
Macca has corroborated this a number of times in interviews since the 1980s - as has Mark Lewisohn.
My recollection is that at the time, pop/rock albums were sold at three price points, $2.99, $3.49, and $3.99, at the store where I purchased albums.
New artists and less popular artists sold at the lowest point, successful artists sold at the middle point. (E.g. Santana sold at $2.99; when that became a hit Abraxas sold at $3.49.) The $3.99 price point was for double albums. The Beatles was priced at twice the middle price.
The following year, Abbey Road, became the first album, to my recollection, priced at $3.99.
In the summer of 1971 I worked in a department, which sold records, so I’m sure it was true then. I believe it was in 1968-9.
Edit - Those must have been the “on sale” prices, but the same structure would have held true for regular prices.
Dead right Kev, all of what you posted is confirmed in the beautiful book, that accompanies the white album box set. I seem to remember the record sold for 59/11, when a single Beatles album normally sold for 39/11, but I could be wrong.
Ah, you’re like me and retain the prices of things from decades ago with great precision. I have an original and pristine UK vinyl version of the White Album inherited from my long deceased uncle. It is the only one of the albums and singles I inherited which is pristine (Sgt. Pepper is literally unplayable) and the only one to come in a plastic outer with a price label from the a certain well known 1960s record emporium in central Liverpool when he bought it.
He was known to buy Beatles stuff on the day it came out and what was noticeable to me was that his copies of both Yellow Submarine and Abbey Road were priced mere pennies above the White Album despite the latter being broadly a year earlier and 2 albums not 1.
I believe the US version was released a few days after the UK version and the white embossing soon changed to grey and flat explicitly in order to lower the cost.
You beat me to Love Beach.
Not everyone enjoys ELP, but that is dreck by anyone’s standards.